In similar exchanges, claims Baran, she had seen the previous “coup” back in 1997. According to one of Baran’s contacts, who had “asked the Iranian generals after the 1979 [Islamic] revolution why they had done nothing to stop it,” their Iranian counterparts responded that by the time they had realized what was going to happen, it was too late to stop it. “We will never let that happen in Turkey,” vowed the Turkish generals. Perceiving the current situation in Ankara in similar terms, Baran informs us that the 50 percent prospect is more likely than not.

Coup-mongering is as old a problem in Turkish intellectual circles as coups themselves. Turkish political history has been marked and marred by varying degrees of military interventions. The first one was in May 1960, when a junta led by junior-ranking officers overthrew the democratically elected but inept government of Adnan Menderes. The next one came in March 1971, when the Chief of General Staff sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel that the military was not happy with the ongoing political turmoil and “advised” the formation of an “above-party” government to bring order. Following the memorandum, Demirel got the message and resigned. Less than a decade later, Demirel, together with the late Bülent Ecevit, failed to stabilize the country and was once again ousted by a military coup in September 1980. The subsequent plebiscite in 1982 produced a constitution which had to be amended more than a dozen times to fit the needs of a rapidly transforming Turkey. Finally, in February 1997, mounting pressure against the coalition government led by the Islamist Necmettin Erbakan culminated in a standoffish National Security Council meeting with the military top brass and led to Erbakan’s resignation a few months later. That move also failed to bring about economic and political stability to Turkey since then.

This synopsis tells volumes as to why another military intervention in Turkey is a bad idea. The first reason is that not a single coup has attained its goals. None of military coups have resulted in bringing long-term political stability to Turkey. The most common word in Turkish political lexicon is still “crisis” and not “merit” or “success.” On the contrary, many of the times those who were ousted came back even more strongly. The Ecevit-Demirel-Erbakan trio came back in the 1990s and did their thing, arguably leading to the economic crisis of 2001. In that regard, coups have been an assured way for those incompetent politicians to ultimately keep their clout, the exact reason why those coups are carried out in the first place.

Coups are also bad for business. Turkey is still on the economic margins of Europe, in stark contrast to where it could and should be. In living standards, Turkey still fails to provide its citizens adequately. Public education is a mess. Those who wish to remain healthy try to avoid hospitals. Roads, electricity and water grids, and urban planning fall quite below public needs. Unemployment cannot be pulled down and direct foreign investment does not go up. Research and development is still not a sector in and of itself.

Coups do not address any of these problems. Worse yet, they produce setbacks through their own devices. The most dangerous of these is the negative impact on the military’s professionalism. The primary duty of a country’s armed forces is not to run that country but to defend and promote its political interests in the international realm. In other words, the best military is that which does not govern at all. When an officer corps that is trained to lead infantry charges, fire artilleries, fly airplanes, and command naval vessels are asked to do myriad things such as running municipalities, inspecting schools, prosecuting criminals, conducting diplomacy, setting agricultural policy, and writing constitutions – all at the same time – the result can be anything but satisfactory. The military’s energetic and vibrant officers, who are well-trained in martial affairs, will only not be successful if they assume control over matters that are not a part of their training. Consequently, that can have adverse effects on their professional self-esteem and would certainly hamper on the Turkish military’s effectiveness as a fighting force and Turkey’s security and defense policy.

Coups are self-fulfilling prophecies. The more likely they get, the more insecure that civilian politicians become. The more insecure they become, the deeper their ineptitude gets. Even though popular belief in Turkey maintains that military “oversight” helps to “straighten out” politicians, a good deal of the time the result is the opposite. In terms of civilian control of the military, this is pretty bad. The Turkish military’s professional attitude is that (as it is true with all respectable militaries around the world) they dislike weakness in superiors and subordinates. Professional soldiers do not like personal weakness; they respect strength, character, and expertise – qualities that Turkish civilian leaders lack most of the time. Yet overthrowing democratically-elected governments, no matter how tempting, is not a remedy but a guarantee for the perpetuation of strained relations between the civilian and military wings of the government.

Another reason why a coup d’etat is a bad idea is because Turkey has changed too much for that. Twenty-six years ago, Turkey was not integrated to the global economic system. There were no private television or radio networks. Mass communication was not as ubiquitous and society was not as open as it is today. It was easy to talk down to the public, implement massive curfews, and streamline a poorly-written constitution. Today, doing those things are nigh-on-impossible. Administering the required discipline and regimentation on a society that has enjoyed the blessings of greater openness is not that easy and would create insurmountable tensions between the idolized army and the Turkish people.

In as much as they believe in their duty to protect their country from internal and external enemies, Turkish officers also know that they have a standing order from Atatürk not to get involved in politics. Atatürk’s vision for Turkey was not a place where those who wake up earlier have a better shot in staging a coup. Even though he failed in his life-time to consolidate a liberal democratic form of government, Atatürk was a democrat at heart and he was aware of his country’s shortcomings. He firmly believed that Turkey’s problems of backwardness and democratization could only be remedied by modernization. Democracy, Westernization, and modernization meant more or less the same thing. He reportedly said in the mid-1920s that “Turkey is going to build up a perfect democracy.” U.S. ambassador Joseph Grew observed Atatürk’s failed attempt to commence multi-party democracy in 1930 as follows:

Atatürk began to think the single party as a sign of Turkey’s inferiority in comparison with Europe and the West. American and European writers have in recent years devoted much space to the Turkish dictatorship which has often been described as Western in form but Oriental in fact. These descriptions have been brought to the Gazi’s attention and he has not been pleased.[2]

A coup d’etat would only affirm that Turkey is indeed a dictatorship that is “Western” in outlook but “Oriental” in essence. Zeyno Baran would probably disagree with my statement, as her concluding remarks reveal:

If a coup were to happen, it would not necessarily translate to a non-democratic Turkey. More likely, it would simply mean the end of Turkey's current “Islamist experiment” and a return to a more conservative government—stalwartly secular, yes, but a democracy nonetheless. Ironically, this Turkey might ultimately be seen to be a better member of Europe than today's.

This is too serious a joke to warrant laughter. It is an indisputable fact that democracy cannot exist without secularism. Religion plus politics equals disaster. On the other hand, a “stalwartly secular” system does not automatically guarantee the stature of democracy to a political regime. A coup d’etat would only demonstrate that, in the face of the perceived Islamist challenge, Atatürk’s principles are ineffective in modernizing Turkey and need to be defended by force.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Turkey will not turn Islamist as long as variables operate in the realm of the real. The previously quoted Iran analogy is therefore extremely ill-suited in explaining Turkey’s position. The problem with Iran during the 1970s was the irresolvable conflict between its socio-economic structure and its political system. Mohammed Reza Shah’s feverish modernization policies which started in 1963 resulted in a country that had the best shot in becoming the industrial, commercial, and military center of the Middle East by the late 1970s. The Pahlavi monarch’s insistence on maintaining a firm grip on political power, however, coupled with mistreating Iranian citizens at the hand of his infamous intelligence agency SAVAK, destroyed whatever support there was for the Shah’s regime and led to his ultimate downfall.

For all its faults, lack of heeding popular will is not a deficiency on the part of Turkey’s political system. Elections happen regularly; they are contested fairly; and result in a change of political leadership. Turkish people might still be frustrated with the slow pace of improvement in their lives, but there is a lot of room for optimism. Freedom of expression, notwithstanding the hideous article 301 of the penal code, is light years further from what it was just ten years ago. Turkey is discussing its touchy Armenian and Kurdish issues with an unprecedented amount of maturity. These advancements might be the first losses in the face of a coup d’etat and it therefore eludes reason as to how that course would “not necessarily translate to a non-democratic Turkey.”

Looking at this picture, what are the chances of a coup d’etat in Turkey next year? 5 percent? 50 percent? Less? More? One cannot know. That is not even the point. Meteorologists are more equipped in predicting actual weather patterns than political analysts who quite often fail in foretelling the political climate. Maybe Ms. Baran is right and I am wrong. But before praying for the imperfect storm that would damage Turkey’s political landscape, it is necessary to consider what the implications of a coup might be for Turkey. Patriotism dictates that the Turkish High Command and Mr. Erdoğan’s government need to think about that before making their next move.

2 December 2006, JTW

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Barın Kayaoğlu is a Ph.D. student in history at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia and a regular contributor to the Journal of Turkish Weekly.

E-mail: kayaoglu@virginia.edu